Thursday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
April 11, 1940.
Allary, Supreme Cockt
| MAGAZINE PAGE
DRAMA
OF NAVAL FUNK
"WOULD rather
THE KIEL CANAL
have
the neutralisation of the. Kiel Cunal than a thousand Heligolands," said Winston Churchill during the peace negotiations of 1918...
He was speaking front experi- ence, for it was the opinion of naval strategists during the war that the Kiel Canal more than doubled the potential value of Germany's navy,
IT represented a bolt hole not
only from the North Sea but from the Baltic, and in less than nine hours a German warship could pays from one sea to the other.
.
Bismarck, Germany's Iron Chian- cellor, and realised the potentiali, tles n generation before. It was his legacy to the young empire.
Until it wus built the only route for all sea traffic between the Bal- tle and the North Sea was round the long Jutland peninsula, and through one of the three tortuous passages of the Little Belt, the Great Belt, and the Sound, which separate the islands between Jul- land and Sweden.
Linking Jutland with Germany are the itat- sea marshes of Schles- wig-Holstelo, scarcely higher than the sen. Through these marshes Bismarck started to drive his canal in 1997.
It was finished In~1895-611 miles of waterway, a few miles longer than the Panama Canal, protected from the marshidut by hieh banks and crossed every few miles by, filgh-level bridges.
On June 10 of that year it was officially opened and christened the Emperor William Canal. Nearly every Power in Europe was present ut the celebrations. We sent some of our latest and most efficient warships and King George V., then Prince of Wales, to represent us
IT
28
was afterwards suggested that the ceremonies had a double-edged significance, for the British warships steamed slowly through the
the canal after
Imperial yacht, offici). German photo- graphers stood on the banks and took close-up photographs of them.
As soon as the ceremonies were over the Emperor showed Europe that he realised as well as any one clse the military importance of the work.
There followed years of measure and counter-mensure, spying and counter-espionage.
For as soon as Germany, made confident by the canal, adopted n cockwure attitude towards Western Europe, Britain built her dread- Houghts. The Emperor, too, kept up the race.
Then he realised that efficient as his great warships might be, they were too large to go into the Kiel Canal.
German opinion about widening and deepening the canal was clarl- fled in 1989 by a mysterious acci- dent.
A Belgian steamer passing through the Canal on her way to the Baltic struck one of the bunks, sprong a leek, slowed completely across the canal, and sank.
This anticipation of Zeebrugge stariled Germany. - Wilką . a. month the work of reconstruc-. tlon niartedi fl was.reckoned that i would take soven years.
Germany guarded the secrets of the comml zealously. Two years before the war an apprehensive English', newspaper, pointed out that this was the only way down which Gennan warships could pass from the Baltic to the North Sea in wartime.
In August 1912 five Englishmen were arrested near the Kiel Canal as suspected spics. The
Here is told the
A... NAZI
HOLE
full dramatic story of Germany's vital
waterway, which Bismarck built.
month the Emperor" sent out in- structions that the work of re- construction must be speeded up.
IN the summer of 1914 the
work was finished, two years before schedule.
com-
It hnd cost £11,150,000, pared with the £7,000,000 cost of original construction, and the coral had been widened from 215 feet to 331 feet, deepened from 20 feet to 30 feet. Here and there Inlets had been built so that two ships could pass,
The sluices heur Holtenau, the gateway to Kiel Harbour, were the largest in the world.
On June 24, 1914, the canal was reopened. At the dimer which followed the opening the Kaiser made no attempt to hide his jubl lation. He gave some facts about the canal.
He pointed out that in the sid- Ings in which ships could pass the whole of the German Navy could "be accomandated. It was noted by the guests that Kiel had become Germany's Portsmouth, defended by powerful batteries on both sides of the harbour.
The southern end of the canal was guarded by Cuxhaven, then the most strongly forlifted district on the whole German coust. ship with a draught of anything more than Iwenty feet-that is,
bigger thun a
A
second-
anything class cruiser-would be compelled by sandbanks to keep within 2,000 yards of the coast, for more than twelve miles.
ny said the Emperor at that
"must be in a position to carry out one of the best suy- ings of the Iron Chancellor: We Germens fear God and otherwise absolutely nothing and no one In the world,"
BUT two days later an in-
cident occurred which marred the even tenor of Ger- many's celebrations.
Police guarding the Imperial Dockyard at Kiel notleed that a ittle rowboat was within the limit prescribed by the huge notices which warned off "Trespassers." They arrested the rower, who was on elderly man,
Two hours later he established his Identity as Lord Brassey, one of Britain's most distinguished re- presentatives, Lord Brassey › was. also the founder and editor of the Naval Review and a celebrated naval observer.
The police had no alternative but to release him.
A week later, on July 4, 1914,
London an illustrated
paper published a map of the canal and noted with alarm its signi- fleance.
A month later England and Germany were at war.
All strangers were immediately forbidden elther to enter or leave the town of Kiel.. All restaurants and popular places near the bar- bour had already been closed for * several days. All neutral vessels were ordered to clear the port within twenty-four hours.
For the rest of the war the canal was the 'secure haven of refuge for the German Fleet, and a thorn In the side of the Aliles,
Hence Mr. Churchill's declurn- tion. He had his way; the Kiel
· Canal was Internationalised,
thrown open to the ships of all nations.
Within four years Germany challenged the treaty, The British chip Wimbledon. carry- ing war munitions from France to Poland (who was fighting Rus- sla) was held up by the Germans In the "Kiel Canal,
France appealed to the Court of International Justice at The Hague, and the treaty was upheld by the Court, which ordered Germany to pay £1,600 damages, to the French Government.
FOR years after the war the
only warship which the canal saw was a French des- troyer guarding the mouth of Kiel harbour. Krupps' works outside Kiel stood silent and cmply.
A few bitter anti-Germans wanted to destroy the ennal, na they had destroyed the fortilles- tions ON Heligoland. The only concession to them was the destruc- tion of Fort Laboe, a far
fortified tower was built up again-into rigantle obetisk to the memory of Gemman sailors lost in U-boats.
Within Afteen years Germany began to rebuild her fortifications on Heligoland.
Krupps are busy again outside Kiel harbour, and the "Trespass" notice boards are up again.
PHOTOGRAPHY
GRIN AND BEAR IT
By Lichty
| 176.
"We hope our work is okay, lady-an' we'd appreciato it if you'd recommend us to yer friends!"
PICTURES BY HOME LIGHTS.
PHOTO bulbs-either
the flood or flash type-are used for most indoor pictures at night.
However, such pictures can also be taken by ordinary home lighting...even with cameras that don't have fust lenses.
The only difference is in the time of exposure,
With the photo bulbs, you can make snapshot exposures. But with ordinary service bulbs, short time exposures are needed, unless the camera has a fast lens.
Now that we have modern high spee: films, the exposurex re- quired are quite short. perially if the subject is near the light source
08-
For example, note the picture on the right. The child's face is about one foot from the light. which is an ordinary 100-watt bulb. Therefore, an exposure of 1 second was ample, using a box camera loaded with high speed film. Slightly less exposure would have sufficed.
*
TIME exposures are about as easy to take as snapshots
but you must remember to hare the camera on a firm, solid support.
*
That's to insure against neci- dont movement during exposure, If elther the subject or the camera moves, the picture will be blurred.
The farther the subject is from the light, the longer you must ex- pose. Suppose, in the picture above, the child' was five or six fest from the light. Then, with o box camera and high speed film, the exposure would have been 10 to 20 seconds.
Excellent exposure guides are now available for pictures by re- gular home lighting. These are holpful in taking pictures of people, still-life shots,table-top acenes, and so forth. They also provide a guide for picturing the rooms of the home; and, of course, rooms look mora natural when photographed with the normal lighting.
*
*
SOME evening soon, load camera with high up your film and try a series of pie- tures by regular home light- Ing.
Watch for "off guard" picture chancca-members of the family nitting quietly under n lamp, reading or sewing.
A quick time exposure of a second or so will get them.
Shoot a few "Interiors," show- Ing different rooms of the house and maybe a table-top picture or two.
It's easy and you'll find more subjects than you think.
A one-second time exposure was ample for this; with a box camera, high- speed film, and 100-watt bulb in lamp.
by
LORD
THE war certainly has not
developed as many people expected, and it is certainly not surprising that one of the consequences of that should have been some criticism of the Government.
Some people say we have taken a lot of action and Imposed many restrictions that experience shows to have been unnecessary and are merely evidence of Füregbrent c red tape, which we all very pro- perly dislike,
No one could tell before the war that these precautions were going to be unnecessary. Certainly 110 Government could have taken the chance of being on the wrong side, and the blame that is attached to us for action would, Rugges!, be nothing to the blame that would rightly have attached to us if we had been. In fact, caught unpre pared,
The fact that precautions have been taken is one of the in- fluences which have deterred our enemy from taking a particular course of action.
*
*
"
M THERE was another wider. consideration.
Germany's only chance of win- ning this war was to, win a quiele war by cashing-in. on the advan- tage they possessed through long preparations, through their forti- fications in the West, their air strength, and their readiness to stop at nothing in waging war, by ECD,
Yet they
have hesitated to Inunch this big offensive on land or in the alr
Certainly hot, I think, because of any tender feelines for you and me, but aimoly for the rea- son that makes this bully, herilato in Jet someone who may hit hlor back.
I have heard it said by men of responsibility and trained judg- ment that if the winter were to
HALIFAX
puss without a great land offensive by Germany it would be the equl- valent of a victory in a major campaign for the Allies. I am not competent to assess the value of that opinion, but I do know that we have made very good use in- deed of these, Just months. We
have taken advantage of them to push on with our production and to land our ever-growing Expetil- tionary Force in France and, above all, to co-ordinate every side of our war effort with that of the French,
The financial and economic agreements we have made with France ore unprecedented and open a new chapter in the relations between our tivo countries, and we hope that the close system of col- inboration which these arrange-- ments represent may in time find n basis even broader and may lead on to such free and close associa- tion in economic and financial Apheres between the nations of Europe at may hold out in the future the best hope of pencetul reconstruction.
ON and the French Army alanda, as ever, the bastion of Western civilisation, and here also we did not. as last timo, wait until nearly four years had gone.
Unity of command was realised" from the very first day of the recognition that wo in this country, give to the valour and military efficiency of our French Allies our troops, since the war vegan, have been under the command of a French Commander-in-Chief to us and to send where he thinks it.
Meanwhile the Germans have been
wartaro
they have made particu» Jarly their own. Indiscriminate warfare
Allied, at na ngainat British,
And neutral shipping qulie, impartisity, by the unrestricted use of the submarino and mine.
Concentz their efforis on Zortne of
But In spite of every breach of inter- national law Germany seems to have gained astonishingly little by it.
Since the convoy ayriem has been organised something like 1,000 ships had been conveyed to the end of December, with the loss of only 12mone in 900, Yo=d[kW = {he organs-of the world have been swopt clear, of German shine and 140,000 tons run aground or Nauction..
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